Chapter 21 The Great Depression Begins. Click on the window to start video.

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Chapter 21 The Great Depression Begins. Click on the window to start video."— Presentation transcript:

1
Chapter 21 The Great Depression Begins

2
Click on the window to start video

3
Section 1 – The Great Crash AN APPEARANCE OF PROSPERITY Popular president in the early 1920s who maintained pro-business policies Calvin Coolidge When running for president there were sharp contrasts in the candidates backgrounds. The total value of all goods and services produced in a nation is called the gross national product. During the boom years of the 1920s overall unemployment across the nation remained low, averaging around five percent, and many people now felt wealthy.

4
However, The boom economy of the “Roaring Twenties” did not apply to farmers. Stocks are bought and sold in the stock market. A share of stock is a share of ownership in a company. As business boomed, the stock market rose sharply. The value of the stocks sold on the stock market increased by four times between 1920 and The uneven distribution of wealth signaled economic weakness.

5

6
As stock prices rose and credit eased, even Americans of modest means became investors. Ordinary Americans began to buy stocks. Republican presidents Harding and Coolidge both favored business growth, and most Americans agreed with this policy. Coolidge decided not to run in the 1928 elections. Herbert Hoover was shy, from the country, didn ’ t believe in drinking alcohol and was a Quaker. Al Smith was outgoing, from the city, supported allowing alcohol, and was a Catholic.

7

8
Between 1922 and 1928 business boomed, and the U.S. gross national product grew quickly. Herbert Hoover oversaw American ’ s food production during World War I and later directed relief efforts in Europe. His replacement, former secretary of commerce Herbert Hoover, won easily.

9
ECONOMIC WEAKNESSES Between 1923 and 1929 were bad times for organized labor because benefits from employers kept workers satisfied, so they felt little need to join trade unions. In spite of the boom, there were still problems in the economy. The wealthiest people saw their incomes grow sharply, but the average worker saw only small gains. Rising prices wiped out increases in wages, especially for farmers and coal miners. The most unionized states were Washington and West Virginia.

10
Harlan County miner ’ s strike of 1931 took place in Kentucky. Farmers strike in 1932 in Iowa and Minnesota. By percent of the nation ’ s families did not earn enough for a good standard of living. Many new goods were introduced in the 1920s, and people often bought them on credit. By the end of the 1920s, people had used up their credit. Spending dropped sharply, and warehouses filled with products that no one could afford to buy. Stockbrokers loaned people money to buy stocks. This was called buying on margin.

11
Buying on margin was riskier than other ways of investing in the stock market; if the stock price dropped, brokers could force investors to repay their loans. The Federal Reserve System is our nation ’ s central bank. It took steps to reduce buying on margin but was only partly successful. Towards the end of the 1920s the main goal of the Federal Reserve's policies, with regard to buying on margin, was to make it more difficult and more expensive to offer margin loans to investors

12
THE STOCK MARKET CRASHES Roger Babson was an economist who warned in September 1929 that “ Sooner or later a crash is coming, and it may be terrific. ” Rumors started that big investors were going to pull their money out of the stock market. On October 24, 1929, investors responded to concerns about the economy by selling off their stocks. In the months before the stock market crash, people who kept up with news in the financial world realized that sales were lagging and investors were pulling out of the stock market.

13
This caused many to sell their stock. There were many sellers and not many buyers, so stock prices fell. Some leading bankers bought stocks, trying to prop up the market. Easy credit led lead to buying on margin. The stock market collapse lead to bank failures. Both contributed to the Great Depression. On October 29, 1929, the stock market collapsed and this day became known as Black Tuesday.

14

15
THE EFFECTS OF THE CRASH Many investors were ruined. Those who had bought on margin could not pay back their loans. Many banks also lost money that they had loaned to businesses and to stockbrokers. Frightened people rushed to take their money out of the banks. Businesses were forced to lay off workers. With no income, people could not buy things, so spending and sales dropped further. The trouble spread to Europe because America had been Europe’s banker.

16
World trade dropped, which made everything worse. In the fall of 1930 more than 6,000 unemployed workers sold apples on the streets of New York City alone.

17

18
Section 2 – Americans Face Hard Times THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States. It was triggered by the stock market crash. However, the downturn spread through the whole economy. Many banks failed as a result of the crash. People who had money in the banks lost it. (Today, there is insurance to protect against this.) By 1933, more than $140 billion in savings had been lost.

19
Farmers were already facing hard times. When Unemployment and poverty and decreased demand for food led to farm prices falling. This made farmers worse off than before. Many Americans went hungry. By 1933 food prices were about half what they had been in Farmers often borrowed money from banks. When prices fell, they could not make their loan payments. By 1935, 750,000 farms had gone bankrupt or been foreclosed.

20

21
Foreclosure means that a lender has taken possession of a property because the owner could not make loan payments. By 1933 gross national product had dropped by 40 percent. Unemployment reached 25 percent. In some places it was even worse than that.

22

23
THE HUMAN IMPACT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION Millions of people were out of work. Many of the unemployed felt ashamed and angry about receiving handouts during the Great Depression. In the earliest days of the Great Depression, most families who lost jobs begged, became hoboes, or went without basic necessities. To survive, many begged. Many went from town to town in search of a job. People who hopped trains to look for work were known as hoboes.

24
Many people lost their homes to foreclosure and Shanty neighborhoods sprang up in many areas. They made shelters of whatever they could find. Sometimes they used cardboard boxes. These loose-knit communities of rustic shacks and tents (shantytowns) were called Hoovervilles. Americans felt deep shame at their poverty. There was a rise in suicide rates.

25

26
DEVASTATION IN THE DUST BOWL Nature helped make the Great Depression worse. There was a severe drought in the Great Plains region. A drought is a time when there is not enough rainfall. Before the drought, careless farming practices left the topsoil with no plants to anchor it. When storms came, they blew the soil away. Dust storms make it difficult to farm in the Great Plains because they stripped off the topsoil and blew it away.

27

28

29
Huge dust storms developed. This occurred in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The Dust Bowl is the term that describes the devastation of the Great Plains by drought. Farms and machinery were destroyed. Many people had no way to earn a living and moved away. Dust Bowl farmers tried moving to California, and were called Okies, even though they were from other states besides Oklahoma. Writers and artists such as John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie, a folksinger, wrote about the Dust Bowl and the Okies.

30
In his books and short stories, Stienbeck writes about how migrants were so desperate for work that they traveled vast distances to find it. John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, a novel about tenant farmers during the Great Depression.

31
Section Summary HERBERT HOOVER ’ S PHILOSOPHY President Hoover downplayed the effects of the crash because he believed the economy would soon recover. Herbert Hoover believed that government should play as small a role as possible in the affairs of business. He believed that too much government weakened the American spirit, which he called “rugged individualism.” For this reason he would not give government money directly to the people.

32
President Hoover ’ s core beliefs about the Great Depression was businesses and individuals (producers and consumers) should be able to cure the Depression without direct government aid. However, he also believed in cooperation. He believed that businesses should form voluntary associations to make the economy fairer and more efficient. He called the voluntary partnership between these associations and government the associative state. Hoover used his idea to build Hoover Dam.

33
The Hoover Dam was created by private business and the federal government working together. The construction of Hoover Dam illustrated a creative partnership between private business and the federal government.

34
HOOVER ’ S RESPONSE TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION Hoover wanted to find ways for people to help themselves. He pushed for a program of loans to strengthen farm cooperatives. A cooperative is an organization that is owned and controlled by its members. Using cooperatives, farmers could buy materials at lower prices and sell their crops in ways that would raise prices for them all. Hoover also talked to businesses, asking them not to lay off workers or cut wages.

35
Faced with economic disaster, however, businesses and individuals worried first about their own affairs. Business cut wages and jobs. State and local governments stopped building projects. Consumers stopped spending. All these actions made the Great Depression worse. Hoover had to take direct action. In 1932 he persuaded Congress to establish the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The main purpose of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was to provide government aid to struggling banks

36
This program gave government money to banks and other institutions. Hoover also supported the Federal Home Loan Bank. The aim of this program was to encourage home building. It also tried to reduce foreclosures. In the aftermath of the crash, industrialized nations around the world took measures to protect themselves by passing high tariffs. One of Hoover’s actions hurt rather than helped was the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. A tariff is a tax on imports.

37
The Act raised these taxes, making imports more expensive for Americans and American goods cheaper than foreign goods. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act backfired because Europeans responded with their own tariffs. Both these moves hurt international trade severely.

38
THE NATION RESPONDS TO HOOVER Hoover tried to make people feel better by saying that the Great Depression was almost over and that things were not all that bad. People stopped believing in him. They also felt that Hoover did not really care about the suffering of ordinary people. They did not see why banks should get aid and people should not. Hoover felt that government should always have a balanced budget. Therefore, he passed a large tax increase in This was very unpopular.

39
In 1930 the Republican Party lost control of the House of Representatives. By the 1932 presidential election, Hoover had very little support. During the Great Depression, President Hoover came under attack because many Americans believed that he did not fully grasp or care about how desperate the American people were.